Good news from NSF: In the most recent update to the Grant Proposal Guide, they have strengthened and emphasized the requirements for data sharing. Here is the summary from the GPG Summary of Significant Changes page:

The Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR) at SOAS preserves and disseminates digital documentation of endangered languages around the world, especially (but not limited to) the outcomes of ELDP-funded projects. ELAR's recently re-launched website is designed specifically to suit the needs of endangered languages archiving, using "Web 2.0" methods to implement a nuanced access control system and make the site user-friendly for a range of audiences.

It is our pleasure to announce the launch of the L&C Field Manuals and Stimulus Materials, a web resource providing access to many of the field manuals produced by the Language and Cognition group at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.

Steven Abney and Steven Bird published a provocative paper (.pdf) at ACL 2010 calling on the computational linguistics community to work to create a "Universal Corpus", an undertaking that they compare in both scale and potential impact to the Human Genome Project. Here is the abstract:

The NSF Directorate for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) released last week a Dear Colleague Letter inviting members of the research community (individuals and groups) to submit by September 30th, 2,000-word-maximum white papers outlining what they think are "grand challenge" questions in the fields supported by SBE "that are both foundational and transformative". These contributions will be used to help the Directorate make plans to support research over the coming decade and beyond.